Asia's fourth-largest economy intends to bet big on innovation to mitigate any potential economic damage from the United Kingdom's decision to quit the European Union.
"We will pre-emptively respond to the Brexit impact through creative endeavors for innovation," Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-Ahn announced at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Tianjin, China on Monday.
South Korean growth has long been weighed down by stubbornly low consumption, tumbling exports and a rapidly aging population. But new technologies, including cloud computing and the internet of things (IoT), dubbed the fourth industrial revolution, can help change that, the PM said.
"Structural reforms in sectors including education, labor and finance will help Korea ride the wave of the fourth industrial revolution," he added.
The country is committed to creative policies, which include creating an enabling environment for the development of new industries, fostering a start-up ecosystem and implementing fresh regulatory changes, he explained.
The existing regulatory framework will be reexamined to get rid of rules that hinder entrepreneurship, while the government will carry forward-looking research and development (R&D) policies to promote new industries, he concluded.